Re: [Review] Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot

Kevin J. Maroney <kjm@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> On 19 Oct 2005 14:42:58 -0700, "tomvasel@xxxxxxxxx"
> <tomvasel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > After playing the game several times, I can see why some don't like
> >it. There's a healthy dose of luck, and the game is essentially one
> >big lottery, with players trying to improve their chances in it.
>
> That's one of the three main problems I had: someone can play
> literally five times as well as the other players combined and still
> lose the game in the final draw. Why not just keep score with the
> carrots?

Well, not that I'm advocating the random-draw finish, one argument
could be that keeping score with the carrots can lead to games where
the winner is obvious early on. Worse, it can lead to strategies
where your best plan is to help other players get carrots. E.g., if
you have 5 of 12 carrots, and player B has 3 and player C has 2, you
can guarantee a win by arranging for C to get a 3rd carrot.

The Killer Bunnies method ensures that every carrot is desirable, even
if it turns out not to the be game-winner in the end. But I can see
where it can lead to disappointing endings. (Well, disappointing to
the player who had the majority of the carrots!)

> The other two problems I had were that it's possible to spend very
> large spans of time unable to do anything at all (it's very similar to
> unmodified Milles Bournes that way); and that pretty much everything
> interesting in the game was done earlier, and better, in Nuclear War.

Speaking of Milles Bournes, which definitely has some of the same
problems where the luck of the cards can make it hard to make progress,
an easy variant to try is "rummy style", where on your turn you can
draw either a new card or the topmost discard. (Exception: After a
coup-fourre (sp?), you must always draw your two cards from the draw
pile. This is in part because the blocked hazard card gets put on
the discard pile, and it's just too gross to let the coup-fourre
player pick it up!

The rummy variant means that, if you're stuck looking for a Roll card,
or a Repair card, you at least have the pleasure of watching your
opponent squirm as they're no longer free to discard those cards.
Of course, you meanwhile might be throwing mileage cards and watching
them get picked up and played...

-- Don.

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